It took Alibaba's customers just 2 minutes and 1 second to buy $1 billion worth of stuff during the holiday, which starts at the midnight before November, 11 (11/11.) In the first hour, Alibaba processed 325,000 orders per second and more than 60 brands recorded sales of more than $15 million, the company said in an emailed statement.

Combining the most recent Prime Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales gives you only 43% of Alibaba's total sales during last year's Singles' Day. Last year, Alibaba shipped more than 1 billion packages and is on track to well outpace that this year.

Other retailers will be trying to replicate Alibaba's success on Singles' Day. JD.com has partnered with Tencent and Baidu to attract as many shoppers to its platform as possible. JD.com has also partnered with Walmart to help fill customer's orders.

Shares of Alibaba were relatively unchanged as the Chinese Holiday started on Friday in the US. The company moved just 0.69% higher on Friday.